To mark the publication of her new book,听Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution, 澳门彩开奖 alum and trustee Janette Sadik-Khan '82 spoke with Christopher Hawthorne about street design, the public realm and mobility in Los Angeles, New York and other cities.
Where the Sidewalk Ends听-听March 17, 2016
鈥淲hen you change the street, you change the world鈥: That was former New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan 鈥82鈥檚 message at back-to-back ThirdLA presentations March 16-17 as she discussed her new book, Streetfight, with Christopher Hawthorne at the Hammer Museum and the offices of Gensler, the global architecture, design and planning firm. At Gensler, Sadik-Khan and Hawthorne were joined by panelists听 Tamika Butler, executive director L.A. County Bike Coalition,听 Seleta Reynolds, Head of LADOT, and Roger Sherman, Gensler's senior project director of planning and urban design.
Drawing on her six years as commissioner and her current work as an international consultant, Sadik-Khan reiterated her call to recapture streets for pedestrians, citing the gains in safety, economic growth, more efficient rapid transit and sheer liveability that result. 鈥淪treets are what make a city great and not so great,鈥 she said.
While acknowledging that density is destiny, Sadik-Khan said that there is still much that can be done to recapture streets in sprawling Los Angeles. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really important to have a vision and a plan for where you鈥檙e going. Mayor [Garcetti] has laid out a good plan 鈥 that鈥檚 a critical first step. Moving quickly to show what鈥檚 possible is also critical,鈥 she said.
In addition to establishing some quick wins 鈥 鈥淵ou can accomplish a lot with a little bit of vision and a lot of paint鈥 鈥 it鈥檚 vitally important to take an analytical approach and document more than just traffic flows, she said. 鈥淲hen we put in protected bike lanes, we found retail sales soared 50%. Data moved us from looking at streets on an anecdotal basis to looking at streets on an analytical basis. We went far beyond measuring cars and were able to show that better streets mean better business.鈥
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